NEA report suggests, it will have a profound negative effect on the nation's economic and civic future.
"We are doing a better job of teaching kids to read in elementary school. But once they enter adolescence, they fall victim to a general culture which does not encourage or reinforce reading. Because these people then read less, they read less well. Because they read less well, they do more poorly in school, in the job market and in civic life."
the declines that occur between age 9 and age 17 in reading proficiency scores and time spent reading
the percentage of 17-year-olds reading almost every day for fun dropped from 31 percent in 1984 to 22 percent in 2004
"there's generally less parental control." Peer pressure gets much stronger, and the culture offers "numerous distractions away from reading."
clipped from: www.washingtonpost.com